


Never Tell Me The Odds

by Man_Who_Sold_The_World



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Grief, Time Travel, Weirdness, idk i just work here man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Man_Who_Sold_The_World/pseuds/Man_Who_Sold_The_World
Summary: request by caeneus_ on twitter
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Never Tell Me The Odds

There are many paths to the World Between Worlds and the Light only discovered one. 

Rey is staring down the Dark’s, and it feels like home. 

It’s a series of caves. Of course it’s caves, it’s  _ always  _ caves. Her footsteps echo throughout the caverns, almost leading her towards her destination. It’s dim, but she keeps her saber at her side. Places like these can feel one's intentions, and if they turn  _ sour _ …

Someone is following her. Rey’s intentions turn  _ very  _ sour.

Her reflection stands before her and smiles, Rey recognizes those teeth. Years ago in the sandy hells of Jakku as a girl, Rey often wished for such teeth. Teeth sharp enough to kill, to bite the hands that refused to feed her. Or, in the very least, teeth sharp enough that a single smile could frighten away the ghosts of the decrepit skeletons that lay strewn about the planet. She draws her saber, and her reflection giggles. 

“I know what you’re looking for,” her reflection tempts, eyes warm and welcoming. 

“You know nothing of what I am, you’re just some...some imagined fear to keep me from this place.” Rey spits back, the yellow light of her saber reflected in the gold flecks of her shadow’s eyes. 

“Keep you? Stars no… who do you think will guide you here?” her shadow asks, offering a bony hand. Rey begins to turn when the voice of her love echoes from eons apart, scribbled into the margins of Luke’s notes, handwritten warnings she knew  _ somehow  _ the source of:

_ Don’t look back _

She takes her shadow’s hand, and the other leads her deeper into the maze of caverns. 

“I know what you come seeking,” her shadow teases, giddy in her darkened expression. Rey ignores her, glancing about the cave as her footsteps echo further into the tunnels. “You come to end the  _ loneliness _ .” her shadow chuckles. Rey tries to pause, her saber still illuminating her shadow as it drags her further into the darkness. 

“That’s not--- not…” Rey trails off as her eyes latch onto one of the puddles. General Organa, a  _ younger  _ General Organa, at least, spits at a masked man. This time when Rey pauses, so too does her shadow. A round droid lurks near the Princess, the masked figure gesturing intensely as she resists still. Rey’s stomach turns as the droid nears the Princess, and her shadow doesn’t budge when she tries to push past it.

Just beyond the puddle lies another with an equally chilling scene. A man, not much older than Rey herself, tightens a fist, and his wife grasps at her throat. Beyond that puddle, a scene Rey is all-too-familiar with: Han Solo’s death. She gravitates towards that one, and her shadow follows. The scene plays out silently, shown from a perspective Rey finds unfamiliar. Han’s eyes warm, focusing on his son. Rey reaches out, and it isn’t until her fingertips disturb the water’s surface, distorting the image, that Han’s voice bursts into the cavern, only fading out as the saber ignition jarringly overwhelms it. 

Rey yanks her hand back, the scene still echoing through the caverns, and her shadow chuckles. 

“Go deep enough in and you can’t get out,” her shadow warns, and Rey pushes forward towards another scene. 

Ben ( _ Kylo? _ ), cloaked in his own darkness still, is pursuing her in the forest, and Rey almost smiles. She reaches into the puddle, his footsteps ringing through the cave. 

“Some say you drown, but you swim rather well for a desert rat.” her shadow further remarks, pushing her in.

She sees her yellow saber flicker within the cave as she falls. 

She spots him before she can spot the blaster she grasps. Rey realizes quickly how little of a plan she actually has formed and Luke’s distant scribbles echo within her thoughts.  _ Don’t look back _ . 

Blaster at her side, she cups her hands around her mouth and shouts “ _ BEN SOLO! _ ” before he can spot her. He turns towards her, masked as he so often was, but Rey can read him better than the Jedi texts. He begins to stomp after her, pursuing her through the woods.

Rey smiles and leads him further and further away from his men as he follows. Finally, she pauses, and he follows suit. He draws not his saber, but nears regardless. She meets him with an intense gaze that betrays no fear. He hold a hand out to read her, but she interrupts--

“I know where Luke Skywalker is.” she answers before he can prod far enough to sense their bond, and he flinches his hand back as though she had burned him. “I will lead  _ you  _ there on three conditioins.” 

“You are in no position to be making demands,  _ rebel _ .” he warns, but does not move to attack. 

“I am no rebel, but I am indeed within a position to bargain.” she counters.

“If  _ General Organa  _ did not send you, then how did you know that  _ name _ ?”

“I’ll tell you on the way to Skywalker. If you want to get there, you will agree to my three conditions.” She insists, and she can sense his sigh coming before it arrives.

“Did Lor San Tekka send you?” he asks, dodging her demands as he circles her. “You look like you came from Jakku.”

“Will you meet my conditions?” she sighs and he pauses. 

“Name them,” he replies, a non-answer if there ever were one. 

“Unmask yourself. I won’t lead some faceless creature to Luke Skywalker.” she begins, and he stops in his tracks. 

“I’m going to kill him, does it matter?” he counters, and Rey flinches at that. It wasn’t that she had forgotten he used to be like this, she was just used to  _ Ben _ and  _ Ben  _ was still buried somewhere under those robes. “Ah, you didn’t realize that,  _ did you _ ?” he asks, nearing her as she tightens her grip on her blaster.

“He’s hidden for a reason, you know.” Rey remarks, tearing up but finding no shame in it. “He’s ashamed, so ashamed of what he did to you that he hid away for decades as the galaxy descended into madness.”

“If  _ General Organa  _ did not send you, and you know not of  _ Lor San Tekka _ , then who are you working for?” He demands, and she can hear his voice weaken as he speaks. 

“Myself,” she answers, honest as she could be to him now. “I want--  _ need  _ peace, and peace will not come until this is all over… and even  _ then _ \--”

“What is your second condition?” he asks softly. His modulator doesn’t pick it up, and she barely hears it through the mask. 

“We go alone, together.” she replies simply, and he tilts his mask. 

“How do you expect me to trust that you will not simply lead me into slaughter?” he asks as she nears, tilting her mask to meet her eye.

“Trust will come in time… for now, you have a saber and I do  _ not _ . That should garner enough protection for just the two of us, shouldn’t it? I’ve heard you can stop blaster bolts with your mind.”

He considers her a moment and nods in agreeance, pulling his helmet off. “And your third?” he asks, meeting her gaze, though his intensity is none to rival hers. She stands on her toes, pressing her lips to his softly and opens her mind until that force which flows between them runs, at first a stream, but then a rapid through their consciousness.  _ Ben?  _ she whispers against his lips, and somewhere in the not-so distant future, she sees him pause at her voice.  _ Rey?  _ He whispers back internally, reaching out towards her from that moment, through his past self, and into her.  _ Find me _ Rey tempts, smiling against Kylo’s lips. Ben reaches towards her, clasping her hand  _ Rey I--  _ he begins, before the connection through time suddenly snaps and Rey sighs. Kylo pulls back in shock, blinking rapidly as he tries to process that series of events. Rey huffs in frustration, pacing about for a moment as Kylo presses a gloved hand to his lips in disbelief. 

“You… you’re a witch,” he accuses, but it sounds more a question than anything else. 

“No,” Rey answers simply.

“A… Jedi?” he asks after a moment, looking to her incredulously.

“ _ Certainly not _ ,” she scoffs in return and he nears her.

“You… Snoke must have sent you here to test me, test my  _ weakness _ .” He reasons, still trapped within the haziness of the kiss. 

“Love is not weakness,” Rey mutters, and his eyes widen. “Nor is  _ desire _ , if that makes you feel any better.”

“Who was that?” he asks suddenly after a moment of silence.

“A friend,” she answers simply, looking off to his ship upon the horizon. Her lips burn in his wake, her hand tense as she tries to recall the feeling of Ben’s within it. “We should go,” Rey insists, stepping towards his ship before Kylo stops her, gloved hand wrapped around her arm. 

“I know you,” he says after a moment, mask still resting upon the rich soil of Takodana. 

“You do?” Rey asks, Ben gazing at her as though her eyes contained all the stars in the galaxy. “Ah, you do.” she smiles, and he releases her. They stand then inches apart. “In your trainings, have you ever come across the idea of a--”

“Dyad,” Ben whispers. “I remember, when I was just a kid really, I had this…  _ Dream _ . This girl in this  _ desert _ screaming for her parents. I saw her, I-I tried to walk over to her, to comfort her, but something stopped me. It felt like tendrils whisking me back. I told her--”

“I’ll come back for you sweetheart,” Rey finishes with a tearful smile. “And you did.” 

“When we kissed, I could see things,  _ remember _ things that haven’t happened. Things I’ve never done, suddenly there. It’s fuzzy, but I can bits and pieces of the rest of my life. I can see the  _ end  _ of it,” he glances off, unable to meet her gaze. “And the beginning.” he finishes with the same sad smile he died with, meeting her gaze once more.

“Let’s change that ending, shall we?” Rey proposes. 

“If I live, you don’t.” Ben states simply. “You came all this way to save me Rey but it’s useless--”

“It’s not useless!” she interjects.

Ben continues. “You returned to save me but you can’t, no one can. If I live there’s no one to return for me left.” He pleads as she marches towards his ship. “Even I can see that with what little I know of the future--”

“You know nothing of the future!” Rey snaps. “You lost me for a  _ minute _ , I’m staring down a  _ lifetime _ !” she nearly shouts, tears of anger and grief mixing on their descent down her cheeks. 

“Rey you can’t change the past, from where you stand it’s already written--”

“Nothing is written. NOTHING.”

“You have to let me go,”

“Don’t go this way. I am entirely tired of people dying for me: my parents, Leia,  _ you _ . Why can’t you live for me, why isn’t that enough?”

“Maybe I don’t deserve that.” he reasons softly. “I’ve done so many-- you offered me salvation and I didn’t take it. My father asked me to come home and I didn’t, I  _ won’t _ .”

“You could, it isn’t set within some grand stone of history.” Rey offers. “You could hardly do it the first time,”

“Don’t, don’t do that remind me. If I don’t do this, you could die.” Ben mutters, teeth chattering against one another in a mix of grief and fear.

“And if I don’t you  _ will _ .” Rey counters, and Ben looks to her in awe. “Take this chance with me…  _ I’ll help you _ .”

“And what if we mess it up? Mess up more than just  _ us _ .” Ben asks, looking to his ship and then back to her. 

“Millions already die in the past that is written, millions that include your father, mother, and uncle..” Rey theorizes with a mad grin. “Odds are we don’t do any worse than that.”

“My family’s odds have never been all that great,” Ben sighs, but matches her grin after a moment.

“I’d still bet on you Solo,”


End file.
